Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Namelesss
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Namelesss »

Greta wrote: December 18th, 2017, 7:57 pm
Namelesss wrote: December 18th, 2017, 7:51 pmEvery Perspective is unique every moment!
Yes, I believe that every person (and living thing) has a valid perspective to express, even when they talk lots of bull pucky. Somewhere in the words will be that person's truth, even if deliberately obscured.
All 'meaning' lies in the thoughts/feelings of the beholder.
The same word can Enlighten and disgust, all at the same time, depending on the Perspective (us).

"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" - The First Law of Soul Dynamics

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!"

And, yes, thank Dog, even what some see (reflected) as BS! *__-

'Truth' is ALL inclusive!!
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

I am rather less postmodern in this. So it goes.
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

The knowledge of who is I is obviously Priori Knowledge, Metaphysical.
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

No doubt an object is a thing, however the subject may or may not be an object.

Metaphysically speaking, I as the subject is not an object.
Not speaking Metaphysically, speaking Realistically, objectively, I as the subject is an object.

I can not be fixed, is not measurable as to location and momentum in Space-Time; I can however can be displaced, I is Transcendental.
As the subject of my being, I is and is not an object, I is a duality, both a material Reality and an immaterial Reality.

Ideally As above so below, as below so above.

According to simply math when and if that which is above is greater than that which is below, I become Irrational.


The whole is greater than the sum total of it two parts, is Three-Times Great.
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

It is the destiny of man, mankind, he and she, to walk the Planet Earth having both a Spiritual Body and a Flesh Body.

Lord of the Ring, Keeper of the Holy Grail,------>0
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

"You can always live without a lover, but you can't love without a liver."

Can anyone explain the above statement.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

Matter first, then life and sentience.
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

Greta I hope that is not your explanation for, Who can explain; You can always live without a lover, but you can't love without a liver."
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Hereandnow
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Hereandnow »

-1-
That is my quest. To find that out.
By my thinking, probably, you are the atman.
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

There has been discussion in another thread about the possibility of there being a universe without subjects, without a single 'I'. What can be said of such a universe? Nothing, because there would be no one to say anything. But we can say something of it, namely that such a universe can exist, can't we? Yes, but that would be an abstraction of a universe. Every concrete possible universe must have a reference point for which it is a universe. In this sense the being of the world and experiencing the world depend on each other. Being and knowing are not so separate phenomena as we often think nowadays. This is one meaning of the concept of transcendental subject. Without it everything melts into nothingness and absurdity. Why should we assume that there can be something self-contradictory?

I remember that more than once someone said it is very easy to imagine a universe without subjects. But I think in this case 'easy' means 'superficial'.
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

Whenever I say: “A universe without subjects is possible”, I deny what I say. But I can say: “If I did not exist, and if there were no other subjects either, the universe could still exist.” But to say this I must exist, and therefore the sentence is pure nonsense. We have no meaningful way of saying that a universe without subjects is possible. Therefore it is not possible. The universe is our universe, and we cannot leave it to its own absurd existence even if we wanted to.
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Hereandnow
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Hereandnow »

I don't know about the absurd part, but consider, Tamminen, that in your waking state, your capacity to acknowledge the world around you as "other" than you includes the insight that this other is about something that is not contingent on your being here; that is, the other things in the world, things that are not you, are presented in such a way that makes it clear there is something independent 'out there' which does not vanish in an act of self annihilation. The "saying so' does not actually yield the other into existence.

Wittgenstein is turning over in his grave.
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

Hereandnow wrote: December 31st, 2017, 5:19 pm I don't know about the absurd part, but consider, Tamminen, that in your waking state, your capacity to acknowledge the world around you as "other" than you includes the insight that this other is about something that is not contingent on your being here; that is, the other things in the world, things that are not you, are presented in such a way that makes it clear there is something independent 'out there' which does not vanish in an act of self annihilation. The "saying so' does not actually yield the other into existence.

Wittgenstein is turning over in his grave.
Interesting that you mentioned Wittgenstein, because what I am saying concerns something similar to the metaphysical subject of Tractatus and what I have called the transcendental subject, borrowing that concept from sources you surely know. So I am not speaking about an empirical, individual subject, but claiming that there must be some kind of a reference point in order for there to be a world at all. If you have read my other posts, you probably know what I mean. It is true that I have pushed the concept of the metaphysical 'I' somewhat further than Kant, Husserl and Wittgenstein, up to the premise in my topic "What is Being" that says "If I did not exist, there would be nothing". But anyway, it is not a question of my personal being that makes the world nonexistent, no one can seriously think that way. Instead, I see the transcendental subject as a precondition not only of knowing but also of all being whatsoever. It is an ontological concept.
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

Hereandnow wrote: December 31st, 2017, 5:19 pm ...there is something independent 'out there'...
So this is the result of your phenomenological analysis. But for me it is just the starting point. Let us take the sentence "The being of the world is independent of my being", which seems to be true and obvious: the world is "out there", independent of my being. But out of what? Independent of what? My being, of course, and the being of each of us. So these phrases express a relation, and one member of the relation is my being. If we remove that part from the relation, nothing is left. Now we come to the sentence "If I did not exist, there would be nothing", which is the clue for all these considerations. These are much more than word games, they reveal something essential in our reality.

So now we have proved the sentence "If I did not exist..." formally, using a kind of dialectic, but in fact it can be seen a priori and very clearly, in a phenomenological intuition, if you think of it thoroughly and not just in an everyday manner. I have seen from your posts that you are quite familiar with phenomenological thinking, so I was a bit surprised to find that you did not see what I mean by these meditations, but you are not the only one, in spite of the fact that the key idea of these thoughts is so obvious and simple when the insight comes.

Now we all know that when others die, the world does not end, nor does it end when I die. So we must conclude that dying does not mean nothingness, not even my nothingness. Therefore we must conclude that the subject is something deeper than my individual subject, it is transcendental. And what is important, the transcendental subject is transpersonal: it only manifests itself as individual subjects. Only in this way the world remains when I die. The subject-object relation is fundamental. Wherever there is being, there is a subject for which that being is.

Let us consider the monads of Leibniz. They are "soul-like", he says. Let us assume that they are individual subjects. A monad expresses all other monads. If one monad is removed, the world continues its being as before, but it is always there from a point of view of some monad.

So can you really imagine a universe without subjects?
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RJG
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by RJG »

Tamminen wrote:Now we come to the sentence "If I did not exist, there would be nothing", which is the clue for all these considerations. These are much more than word games, they reveal something essential in our reality.
Not so. This is flawed reasoning. You are falsely equating the logically sound "If I did not exist, then there would be no 'me' to know anything", with the logically unsound "If I did not exist, then there would be nothing".

If A does not exist, then A does not exist. That's it! ...that's all that can be claimed! A's non-existence has no bearing on the existence of B, C, or D.

This flawed logic is also self-contradictory. Other "I's" currently do not exist, but yet, somehow, 'something' still exists (e.g. you and I).

Tamminen, you are caught up in a belief that has no logical basis. You are throwing out logic in favor of feeling/desire (religion?).
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